Loveland train depot will be moved to Granby museum

By Craig Young

Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
07/11/2014 10:24:39 AM MDT

Loveland Historical Society member Pam Sheeler stands outside the Great Western Railway depot Thursday near Monroe Avenue and East 10th Street as she talks about the building's history and efforts to it. (Steve Stoner / Loveland Reporter-Herald)

A historic local building will have to leave Loveland to be saved.

The 112-year-old Great Western Railway depot in east Loveland was slated for demolition, according to the local history buff who is fighting to preserve it, but instead it will be moved to Granby for use as a railroad museum.

"I don't want to see it go into the ground," said Pam Sheeler, a member of the Loveland Historical Society.

"I wanted this building to stay here in the city, but it's just not meant to be," Sheeler said. "This is not the greatest thing, to move it all the way out of the area, but at least it will be repurposed."

The Great Western Railway was built early in the 20th century by the Great Western Sugar Co. to serve its beet-processing factories along the Front Range.

The Great Western Railway depot building has two decorative tin elements on its roof. (Steve Stoner / Loveland Reporter-Herald)

The depot was used to coordinate shipments of beets and products to and from Loveland. The railroad also carried passengers, who embarked from the small wooden building.

The railroad now is owned by Denver-based OmniTrax, which wants the long-vacant depot building removed from its property near Monroe Avenue and East 10th Street, Sheeler said.

Out of Options

The Loveland Historical Society and the people trying to save the 1,200-square-foot depot pursued many options, including moving it to city property a few feet to the south, but nothing worked out.

Historical Society member Sharon Danhauer said the building would have been eligible for state historic-preservation grants only if it remained in its original context — near the Great Western tracks and the sugar factory.

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"It's a shame it has to leave Loveland, because it's such a part of Loveland's history," Danhauer said. "It's a crying shame."

Just when Sheeler thought she'd run out of options last August, she was put in touch with Dave Naples, president of the Moffat Road Railroad Museum in Granby.

Naples is thrilled to finally have a building to house the visitors center, gift shop and small displays for his organization's interpretive park, which so far consists of a 1915 rail shed, 1923 caboose and 1905 rail coach in various stages of restoration.

The museum also will have a scale-model working steam engine that will give rides to children, he said.

"We're not open as a full museum yet because we don't have a building," Naples said.

The museum project, underway since 2006, tells the story of the Moffat Road, a railroad started in 1904 by Denver financier David Moffat that was to connect Denver with Salt Lake City. The ambitious project, called the Denver Northwestern & Pacific Railroad, passed through Granby and got as far as Craig before Moffat died and financing disappeared.

A Perfect Fit

Naples said the 1902 depot building from Loveland will fit perfectly at the Granby site.

"It's the right era, it's the right architecture and it looks like a train depot," he said.

This 1959 photograph shows Loveland's Great Western Railway depot at 10th Street and Monroe Avenue while it still was in use. (Denver Public Library / Western History Collection)

The Moffat Road museum will retain the building's Loveland identity, he said, with signage and artifacts describing the depot's use by the Great Western Sugar Co.

A small freight building that was built behind the depot in 1942 also will be transported to Granby. "We'll interpret it as a freight house," Naples said, with scales, handcarts and possibly a classic pickup backed up to the loading area as if to pick up a shipment.

Naples said he's waiting for the official paperwork from OmniTrax transferring ownership of the buildings to his organization. As soon as he gets that, he'll start taking apart the depot building, he said.

"I was hoping it was going to happen this month, but I don't know," Naples said.

The roof will come off, the 60-foot-long side walls will be cut in half and loaded onto a flatbed truck with the end walls and the roof rafters, and the whole package will be driven to Granby via Interstate 70 and U.S. 40, he said.

The 18-by-18-foot freight building will be hauled west in one piece.

Using mostly volunteer labor, he expects the depot deconstruction process to take 10 days to two weeks and cost about $7,000.

Once the buildings are safely in Granby — before winter weather sets in, he hopes — it could take another two years and $120,000 to $130,000 to finish repurposing the depot.

'At Least It Will Have a Home'

Sheeler said she believes that 10 or 20 years down the road, the city of Loveland will regret losing this piece of its history. But she's glad the building won't be destroyed.

"At least it will have a home, and we'll still be able to go over and visit it," she said.